Read Online Into the Thinking Kingdoms by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online

open and its unfolding sides to multiply, a towering figure rose from its center. It wore heavy iron armor and had shoulders like a buffalo. The massive skull hung low on the chest, and mordant eyes blazed deep within the cold-forged helmet. A spike-studded club rested on one shoulder, and its thighs were as big around as Simna ibn Sind’s entire body.
    “Brorunous the Destroyer.” Bin Grue announced the apparition’s arrival with a contented grunt.
    A second figure emerged from the softly pulsing, inch-high platform generated by the ever-expanding box. Eight feet tall and thin as a whip, it leaned forward so that its elongated arms touched the floor. Resembling a cross between a spider monkey and an assortment of cutthroats Simna had once known, it held a pair of throwing knives in each hand and drooled like an idiot. A demented, homicidal idiot.
    Bin Grue spoke again. “Yoloth-tott, Cardinal Assassin to Emperor Cing the Third of Umur.”
    Other figures began to appear, massive of limb, effusive of arms, and maniacal of mien. They crowded together in the defiled space limned by the ichorous phosphorescence that spilled from the dilating box. Haramos bin Grue had a name for each one, though he did not call them out as if reciting a register of old friends. His tone was unimpassioned and impersonal, the same he might have used to itemize any inventory.
    The result was a pageant of perversion, a bringing together of slavering, marching evil not to be found at any one time in any one place anywhere in the world.
    “Behold,” he proclaimed flatly when the final apparition had been called forth and the box had unfolded its last. “No greater aggregation of murderers, butchers, and psychopaths is to be found anywhere. All gathered together for your consideration. They act only at the bidding of the master of the box that contains them, and I can tell you from previous experience that their extended suppression in a much-confined space does nothing to improve their already misanthropic temperament. At such times when they are freed from that confinement, as they are now, they’re eager to express their sentiments.”
    Simna ibn Sind had drawn his sword. No coward, he was ready to stand and fight. But, looking at the awful assemblage of accumulated annihilation arrayed before them, he could not help but be less than sanguine about their prospects.
    Still, there was something the cold-blooded merchant did not know.
    “The sky-metal sword!” he whispered tensely to his tall, phlegmatic companion. “Use the sword! Draw down the wind from the heavens and blow these hard-featured horrors away!”
    “In so confined a space that could be dangerous to all of us.” Ehomba eyed the assembled grinning, grunting, expectant specters thoughtfully. His unruffled demeanor was beginning to unnerve the trader.
    “Look upon the fate that has unfolded before you, herdsman. I have but to give the word and they will rend you from head to foot. They’ll rip out your organs and feast on them raw. Have you no fear? Or are you too ignorant to know when death is staring you in the face?”
    Ignoring the conglomeration of anticipative vileness, Ehomba reached slowly over his back. Not for either of the two swords slung there, but for something small concealed within his pack. Nor did he thrust forward his walking stick–spear with the dark, enchanted fossil tooth that was lashed to its tip. While the merchant watched curiously to see what he was about and Simna ibn Sind hovered anxiously by his side, the herdsman uncurled his fingers to reveal . . .
    “A piece of string?” Ibn Sind’s lower jaw dropped.
    Ehomba nodded once. “Yes. Though my people would say twine, and not string.”
    Haramos bin Grue sighed regretfully. “It all makes sense now. You have the fearlessness of the mad. Only the completely crazy can be truly brave, because they really never comprehend the dangers before them.” He started to turn away. “That won’t stop